Bullied boy publishes his tale of courage
EIGHT-year-old Lelo Mofokeng is intelligent and wise beyond his years. He exudes an assertiveness one wouldn’t associate with a primary school child.
While other boys his age are climbing trees and playing superheroes, he’s putting pen to paper – literally. The Kempton Park, Grade 3 pupil has published his first book.
Asked how it feels being an author and he replies with a giddy “it feels awesome!”
His mother, Lerato Rakgaba, saw glimmers of her son’s gift when he started reading at 18 months.
“It started with drawings, and then naturally when he started writing properly with a pen, it went on to writing.”
The book, is an account of Lelo’s experience of being bullied at school from Grade 0 to Grade 1. he refers to the main protagonist as “Ken”.
Now that his book is common knowledge, surely his tormentor must know Lelo is referring to him? “Mmm… I don’t know. Maybe he does.” He says, with great relief, that the bullying has stopped.
“Bullying is a national epidemic and the harmful effects on a bullied child can last a lifetime,” says Cindy Glass, director and co-founder of Step Up Education Centres.
But it’s not just the victims. Parents are left feeling helpless and frustrated. Rakgaba says she first heard about the bullying two days after the first incident.
“When he and a friend told the teacher, she said it would be sorted, so I mustn’t worry. When it happened again, I asked him if I should do something about it and he said no; the teachers were handling it.”
It’s evident that the wounds are fresh for her and her family as Lelo relays that the bullying took all sorts of forms, from being pushed and even punched in the stomach. I ask Rakgaba about the school’s anti-bullying policy. The school handled it behind closed doors, but he was still dealing with the fear that it might happen again, she says. She recalls an incident on the last day of school: “We went on holiday, and he kept on saying he wished the holidays wouldn’t end. Two days before school reopened, he just didn’t want to go back. The first day back, I get a phone call from the teacher saying he’s crying under the table.” Rakgaba says it took its toll on her: “How do I fix this? He didn’t want to go to school.” Things came to a head one day when she decided to confront her son’s bully.
“We went to a birthday party. I knew he’d be there..”
She approached the boy, spoke to him in a non-confrontational manner and asked that he apologise to Lelo.
“He apologised, and you could see the weight lift off my child.”
Importantly, Rakgaba says, at the end of the day the bully is a child dealing with something we don’t know about.
“He’s probably going through something. You can’t just go on the attack not knowing the reason behind it.”
Fortunately, Lelo’s story has a happy ending – and he got a book published out of it. And, Rakgaba says, the response has been amazing.
Parents from all backgrounds have been getting in touch with them, asking for advice and just wanting to talk.
His message comes through loud and clear: “I want other kids to know that they not the only ones that went through bullying. They are not alone.”